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Is Chrome OS Threatening Windows? (arstechnica.com)
Ars Technica sees new $600 "premium Chromebooks" Dell, Samsung, HP, and Lenovo as a growing challenge to Windows, proving that Chrome OS is reaching beyond the education market.
These $600 machines aren't aimed at those same students. Lenovo reps told us that its new Chromebook was developed because the company was seeing demand for Chromebooks from users with a bit more disposable income. For example, new college students that had used Chrome OS at high school and families who wanted the robustness Chrome OS offers are looking for machines that are more attractive, use better materials, and are a bit faster and more powerful. The $600 machines fit that role.
And that's why Microsoft should be concerned. This demand shows a few things. Perhaps most significantly of all, it shows that Chrome OS's mix of Web applications, possibly extended with Android applications, is good enough for a growing slice of home and education users. Windows still has the application advantage overall, but the relevance of these applications is diminishing as Web applications continue to improve... Second, this demand makes clear that exposure to Chrome OS in school is creating sustained interest in, and even commitment to, the platform. High school students are wanting to retain that familiar environment as they move on. The ecosystem they're a part of isn't the Windows ecosystem. Finally, it also shows that Chrome OS's relatively clean-slate approach (sure, it's Linux underneath, but it's not really being pushed as a way of running traditional Linux software) has advantages that are appealing even to home users. The locked down, highly secure Chrome OS machines require negligible maintenance while being largely immune to most extant malware.
And that's why Microsoft should be concerned. This demand shows a few things. Perhaps most significantly of all, it shows that Chrome OS's mix of Web applications, possibly extended with Android applications, is good enough for a growing slice of home and education users. Windows still has the application advantage overall, but the relevance of these applications is diminishing as Web applications continue to improve... Second, this demand makes clear that exposure to Chrome OS in school is creating sustained interest in, and even commitment to, the platform. High school students are wanting to retain that familiar environment as they move on. The ecosystem they're a part of isn't the Windows ecosystem. Finally, it also shows that Chrome OS's relatively clean-slate approach (sure, it's Linux underneath, but it's not really being pushed as a way of running traditional Linux software) has advantages that are appealing even to home users. The locked down, highly secure Chrome OS machines require negligible maintenance while being largely immune to most extant malware.
And that's why Microsoft should be concerned.
These fellas are smoking something. Until Chrome OS can have "native" applications like Windows does, MS doesn't have to worry. Where is Chorome OS' equivalent of Microsoft office?
I have an answer for you: Nothing.
Hard to believe anyone can be surprised by this news.
I am the 'computer guy' to a large number of friends, family members, and neighbors. Over the past few years every single person I've helped with their computer problems has used their Microsoft computer for nothing more than email, webbrowsing, pictures, and movies. They used their computers less and less each year with more and more of the tasks listed above on their cellphones.
Long gone are the days when almost every person needed to have Internet Explorer to do any sort of online banking. Any consumer company in 2018 is making sure that their services and content is a first class experience on Android and iOS.
Exacerbating many of the people I help is that not only do they have no use of Windows apps their Windows systems get trashed by viruses or spyware or other random problems while their cellphones just work.
All of these people would be better served by a Chromebook or something similar but almost none of them are aware of what they are. The demand would be even greater if these people understood that all of the problems they constantly are coming to me with are exactly what the Chromebook was designed to solve.
just like they stopped Linux netbooks by licensing Windows XP cheaply to OEMS on netbooks.
That's not what stopped Linux-based netbooks, otherwise we'd still have Windows based netbooks. Tablets and smartphones killed the netbook.
"The Network Is The Computer"
everything old is new again
Cloud, network computing, "dumb" terminals... it's like how there's a push towards game streaming as well. If the network bandwidth and latency gets good enough, you don't actually need to have a GTX1080 class GPU in your machine... computing history just seems to oscillate between local computing power vs. "do it on the mainframe and use a terminal"
Suure, we'll all live in the cloud. Because, fuck privacy and the internet is always available, right?
A. Microsoft and Google don't track you in the same way. Not even close. Google literally archives and analyzes your emails and documents. Microsoft keeps track of how you're using Windows, not the contents.
B. Windows is used for a lot of things other than Office and Outlook.
B1. There's no good replacement for Outlook.
If all you're doing is Face/Gram/Tweeting, and you don't care about some Global MegaCorp reading everything you do online, then yes, just stay with a Chromebook.
I don't respond to AC's.
Microsoft will try to kill it; offer incentives, eg: reduced/zero app store fee if they don't sell the Chromebook port.
With 95% desktop market share, MS isn't going to lose much sleep over $600 chromebooks - the threat isn't real, people who like chromebooks rely on Corp/school district IT departments to make the chrome os environment as useable as say a windows notebook - remove IT Department support and Chrome OS is less attractive to the average user than a Linux notebook/netbook, and at $600 you can get a very capable windows laptop from any major manufacturer (except Apple, which really starts at $1K).
Ken
You are far more technical than most, and know proper procedures on what to do, and how to save your data. I've fixed way too many computers that crashed from something they installed, and they just lost 10 years of data and photos because they did not know what they are doing, this is where chrome shines, those users will no longer lose the photos of their kids growing up, or notes, you would be the 10% of users.